Release
by Krillin Fan
Summary: A former legendary Desert Bandit is forced to come fact to face with the cause of his pain. Will he overcome it, or will it ruin him?


**Release**

_Hey folks! I'm back again. Now I know you were all wanting me to update some of my other stories, and I will. Lord knows it's been bugging the living crap out of me over all this time. But I seem to have lost my flow, and the way to get it back in the past was always to include just a little one-shot to get the creative juices flowing again. So I'm gonna focus on a couple you may not have expected: Yamcha and Bulma. No, this won't be a "What If Vegeta Wasn't…" story, this is just my take on why they may have broken up, and I feel too much blame is placed solely on one person in that relationship, SO… Here we go. Ready?_

_

* * *

_The Great Desert.

A place of savage heat, harsh terrain, where the unforgiving sun beats down upon the residents without mercy. A place where hardly the hardiest of cacti can even survive. The perfect place for training.

It was here that a lone warrior stood, face to the wind, allowing the sand and pebbles to whip freely across his face, welcoming the feeling of resistance as he waited for the dust to settle.

'Why?' He thought to himself. 'Why did it have to happen like this?'

When the dust finally settled, he opened his eyes to take in his surroundings. Great sand dunes were scattered about the horizon in such a way as to appear to be waves on an ocean of sand. These would be his targets. These would be his focus.

These would be his release.

The warrior set his focus on a particularly large dune and closed his eyes. His senses were heightened, he could sense the individual grains of sand in the dune, could hear the various notes carried by the wind, he could feel everything around him. Drawing back his arm, almost in preparation to strike, he began to concentrate, too feel his energy focusing on that one spot in the center of his palm and slowly began to trot forward, hearing the echoes of recent events flow through his mind.

"_What are you doing here?"_

He began to pick up speed, still focusing all his energy into his palm, beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead.

"_I can explain, please…"_

He began rushing now at a furious pace, sweat running down his forehead, a low growl taking form in his throat.

"_This doesn't mean anything. I'd been drinking, and… this is just an accident, really… I didn't mean to hurt you like this…"_

The growl intensified as sweat rand down his face in rivers, his pace intensifying to an all-out charge across the desert sands, the air around his palm swirling with a heat all its own, as the forlorn face of his former love appeared in his mind's eye.

"_Yamcha… I'm sorry…"_ Her voice faded with her image, and a new yet familiar face appeared. The face of a smirking Vegeta.

Unable to restrain himself any loner, Yamcha's eyes flew open, and his growl erupted into a roar as he thrust his arm forward, forcing the energy gathered in his palm forward in the form of a blast of air, exploding as it collided with the sand dune…

Still fifteen feet away.

Yamcha slammed his eyes shut as the inevitable mini-sandstorm blew past him, whipping his already wild hair into a frenzy, his skin pelted by the small pebbles that had been within. He opened his eyes to see a sizable piece of the dune missing, but little more damage, far from his desired result.

'Too soon. I fired it off too soon… again.' He sank to the desert floor and hung his head. 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I keep my focus? That was… months ago…' He sighed.

* * *

"_Why did this happen to me?" Yamcha demanded, pounding his fist on the table._

_Master Roshi simply stroked his beard in silence._

"_I just don't get it! I mean, I know we'd been fighting, but I go back there and… and… " Yamcha struggled to fight back his tears. "And now she's pregnant… and by HIM?" Yamcha's fist tightened at the very thought. "I knew I couldn't trust that filth around her."_

_Roshi peeked out over his sunglasses. "So… Vegeta, huh?" Yamcha managed a weak nod. "Good Lord, if that child's anything like him, we're doomed."_

_Yamcha squinted at the old master. "Forgive me if I fail to find any humor in all of this."_

_Roshi sighed. "I only WISH I were joking. But that's besides the point, boy." Roshi picked up one of his magazines and leafed through it lazily. "So do you happen to feel like sharing HOW this happened, or am I going to have to make it all up in my head? Because I'm perfectly comfortable with that, you know…"_

_Yamcha groaned. "Drunk. She said she'd been drinking, of all things, and Vegeta had some too…"_

_Roshi dropped his magazine onto the living room floor. "Good Lord, she's getting a planet-destroying space pirate with a temper drunk. I'm convinced the woman is trying to kill us."_

_Yamcha slammed the table again. "This is NOT A JOKE, old man! She cheated on me! And of all the… I've gotten wasted before, and you never found ME knocking up some other chick, now did you?"_

_Roshi adjusted his glasses. "No, you haven't. But not for lack of trying, I can tell you that much." He looked back at Yamcha's shocked expression. "Boy, if only you knew some of the things Pu'ar and the other boys have told me about some of the exploits they've saved you from. Heck, one time you hit on Launch. The blonde version. That's downright certifiable, boy!"_

_Yamcha swallowed hard. "Uh... I don't really remember that, but…" his face hardened. "But that still doesn't make up for what she did."_

"_Ah, but that did happen, didn't it? I'm not making excuses, Yamcha. I'm not going to say what she did was right by you. I'm just saying she wasn't in her right mind when she did it either." He frowned. "And according to you, neither was Vegeta." Yamcha shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "I know you're no fan of his, but I think you know Vegeta's not quite petty enough to do this intentionally."_

_Yamcha sighed. "But it… I… "A tear made its way down his cheek ad he wiped it away furiously. "I need to be by myself right now. Need to get back to my training, sort this out." He rose to his feet and stomped out of the room._

"_Yamcha!"Roshi's voice carried after him. "I don't know if I approve of this. You could hurt yourself if you can't focus properly."_

"_I'm sorry, Master", he said, not bothering to look back. "I just can't sit here and dwell on this. I'm more worried about what might happen if I don't do this."_

_

* * *

_

And that had been that. Yamcha had made a beeline straight for the barren desert lands and thrown himself into his training. Day and night, he worked, sleeping in what few caves offered shelter from the elements as he came to them. Day and Night he forced himself to focus, to work his body and mind to the fullest extent possible… and yet his mind kept wandering back to that… event. He couldn't seem to forget it, it constantly pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, so strong that he could hear her voice, see their faces… and no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, the sight of Vegeta would set him off almost instantly.

Yamcha absentmindedly picked up a handful of sand and watched as it idly slipped through his fingers back onto the desert floor below. A light came on in his mind's eye, and the words of a wise old man came floating back to him.

"_Learn to master your mind, son. Only then can you truly master yourself."_

Yamcha stood and dusted off the seat of his pants. 'This time', he thought to himself, 'I won't miss.' He raised a hand and began his focus, slowly drawing back his hand. He set his eyes on an even larger dune and once again began his charge over the hot sand. The energy gathered more swiftly this time, his charge more fluid as he seemed to glide rather than run toward his target…

Then came the visions again.

"_What are you doing here?"_

He stumbled a bit as sweat again began to run down his forehead.

"_I can explain, please…"_

The flow of the energy became more irregular, less smooth, as if it were boiling forth.

"_This doesn't mean anything. I'd been drinking, and… this is just an accident, really… I didn't mean to hurt you like this…"_

Yamcha tried to suppress the voices, his focus entirely on his target. He could not fail this time; too much was hanging in the balance for him to let all his training go to waste.

"_Yamcha… I'm sorry…"_

His steps once again became smooth, his path straight as an arrow. The energy no longer boiled forth from him, but flowed like a gentle stream once again. This was it, no turning back now…

Then he saw it again; the smirking face of the Saiyan Prince, that mocking stare focused on him and his misfortune. It was so tempting to fire; he wanted to hurt him, cause him pain like he'd been caused. Wanted to make him suffer…

Instead, he merely looked beyond it, his eyes fixed on his prize as he drove his hand forward again, rewarded by the feeling of soft sand against the tips of his fingers as he unleashed the power he had gathered there. The inside of the sand dune glowed for a brief moment before it exploded, nearly two tons of sand whipping about through the air, creating a virtual wall as it expanded outward into the desert beyond.

Shortly after the dust had settled, Yamcha straightened his stance, large piles of sand falling from his head and shoulders into the bottom of the crater where the dune once stood. In fact, where several dunes once stood, he noted with pleasant surprise. A frown soon made its way across his features, however.

'Not enough," he said to himself. "Not for the levels of training I've done". Yamcha inwardly cursed himself. All this time spent dwelling on the past had cost him, both in time to train and in progress. He was only at the level he'd been at two weeks earlier. And yet…

He couldn't help but smile. 'Not there yet' he thought to himself, 'but I'm getting there.'

'Soon enough… I'll get there'.

* * *

_Well, that's it for this one. Hopefully it'll tide you guys over until I get out my next updates. Have a few ideas to hammer out for the ol' comedy fic even, so keep an eye out._

_SeeYa!_


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